This week, Joule Biotechnologies, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based start up, is announcing that the company has created a fuel that is literally made from sunlight.
The fuel, dubbed SolarFuel, is created in a process called helioculture, where carbon dioxide and sunlight are combined in a device that resembles a solar panel. Inside the device, engineered organisms (the company won't say what they are for proprietary reasons) absorb the sunlight and carbon dioxide. The organisms will then omit a combination of fuel ethanol, petroleum-derived compounds, and hydrocarbons that, in theory, can be used to fuel things.
While this process certainly is revolutionary, the big question (as with all biofuels) will be whether it can be produced efficiently in mass quantities. For more info on SolarFuel, check out this story from The Boston Globe.
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